Then, in 1838 a French whaler, Captain Langlois decided that Akaroa would make a good settlement to service the whaling ships, and "purchased" the Peninsula in a dubious land deal with the local Maori.
He returned to France, floated the Nanto-Bordelaise company, and sail for New Zealand with a group of French and German families aboard the ship Comte de Paris, with the intention of forming a French colony on a French South Island of New Zealand.
However, by the time Langlois and his colonists arrived at Banks Peninsula in August 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi had already been signed (the signatories including two chiefs at Akaroa in May) and New Zealand's first Governor, Hobson, had declared sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand.
On hearing of the French plan for colonisation, Hobson quickly dispatched the HMS Britomart from the Bay of Islands to Akaroa with police magistrates on board.
While Langlois and his colonists sheltered from unfavourable winds at Pigeon Bay on the other side of the Peninsula, the British flag was raised at Greens point between Akaroa and Takapuneke and courts of law convened to assert British sovereignty over the South Island.
The French settlers stayed on, making Akaroa the first colonial settlement in New Zealand's South Island, but their colony was not to be French.
Nevertheless, the French left a mark on Akaroa, laying out its charming narrow streets and planting many walnut trees and roses whose descendants survive. In 1850, when the Canterbury Association settlers arrived to start Christchurch, homes and gardens in Akaroa were already flourishing. Quite a number of British settlers came to Akaroa, and the town became a melting pot of settlers from different nations.